Tory chiefs have denied they intend to reduce the role of the rank-and-file in electing future party leaders.

Reports suggest the 1922 Committee of MPs is considering handing power back to backbenchers in a reversal of reforms made by William Hague.

Many Tory MPs are said to believe that too much power has been given to party members.

The new system led to the election of Iain Duncan Smith despite his failure to gain the support of a majority of the parliamentary party.

MPs threw Duncan Smith out after two years and many do not want to repeat the experience.

The parliamentary party denied the grassroots a say in the 2003 election by only offering them one candidate - Michael Howard.

If the party's constitution was changed soon after the next general election it would reinforce Howard's position and stop a right wing challenger who might be more popular with the grass roots.

Denial

However deputy leader Michael Ancram denied the reports published in the Telegraph.

"I have heard nothing of this. There are procedures always within the Conservative Party to change the constitution. But certainly I know nothing of this," he told the BBC.

If such a move were ever made it would be resisted by the grassroots and Eurosceptic MPs.

Many party members are from the right and anti-European wings and would be reluctant to hand back power to the parliamentary party.

Eurosceptic Tory MP Bill Cash told the Telegraph he had the "gravest reservations". "When democracy has been given it should not be taken away," he said.

But pro-European Lord Heseltine said the party should press ahead with reversing the reforms.

"By the nature of things, the activists are going to be a degree to the more extreme of the party than the parliamentarians," he said.

"They will tend to be older. They will tend to represent the narrower church within the Conservative Party and they will, perhaps, not have the same perspective about the political reality that winning power requires."